


I know, It’s fun to pretend isn’t it?

by Summertime_saddness



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble, Gen, Malia-centric, Past Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:45:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summertime_saddness/pseuds/Summertime_saddness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malia didn’t have the convenience of not being able to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I know, It’s fun to pretend isn’t it?

Malia didn’t have the convenience of not being able to heal. She couldn’t lay unconscious in a hospital bed for hours with a slashed out throat, while a boy cried silently over her, refusing to let go of her hand. She couldn’t get stabbed in the gut by a rogue Kanima tail and require emergency surgery. She couldn’t have a hole drilled into her head that would need weeks of healing, that would require another person to help change the bandage, to read her her homework assignments, to make her tea. Malia didn’t even like tea. But that didn’t matter. 

Malia instead could get shot in the stomach and heal a few hours later without even a scratch. She could get her nose broken and feel her cheek cave in and her ribs crack and shatter over and over, and twenty minutes later there would nothing to show for it but the dried blood that would cover her face. Malia could watch her own mother hunt her down and break her left arm, pulling it until the bone pierced through the skin and all she could feel was the hot blood running down her arm as she screamed and screamed. She could feel the bones of fingers on her right hand bend, snap, crunch; ground down under the heel of the Desert Wolf’s boot until she was sure the pain alone could kill her. But, she would heal. Malia would always heal.

She wasn’t surprised when she looked through the glass of the hospital room and saw Stiles sitting next to the bed where Lydia lay. He looked pale, worse even than he had when Malia has seen him last, when there had been glass in his hair and blood smearing the side of cheek, his moles lost in the sea of red. That Stiles had looked tired, hurt, exhausted. This Stiles, this Stiles looked devastated. He held Lydia’s hand carefully from across the crisp white sheets, his trembling fingers jumping over her pale skin. His eyes were trained on Lydia’s face, glassy and red, as they took in her every breath, tracking the rise and fall of his chest like it was his own personal hallelujah. He looked dirty; Stiles hadn’t bothered to change his clothes from the fight before and Malia could make out the still drying blood that clung to the threads of his torn overshirt. Some of it had dripped down to the white sheet that hung off the bed, it’s red streaks looked like tiny claw marks, clouding their scene like a stain. Malia wondered is he even realized that it wasn’t his blood that marked the front of his shirt, soaking his labels. 

He had hugged Malia before, right at the end of everything, pulling her briefly into his arms after the Desert Wolf had finally been killed. She had been bleeding heavily, from her mangled arm, her hand, from her stomach where she had been nearly clawed open, and Stiles had pulled her into his arms and it had felt like coming home. He smelled like day old clothes, sweat and stale coffee, like the grass after a rainstorm and the field in the woods Malia used to run through. If she breathed deeply enough she could smell the old red gummy candy he used to always eat, she could smell the faint leather and pack smell of the jeep, the tangy spark of adderall in his bloodstream, the minty cotton smell of his bed. Malia wanted to bury herself somewhere in his rib cage, be surrounded by his scent and warmth and just...breathe. 

She had let out a whimper, so small, so quiet, that she’s sure Stiles couldn’t hear her, she hoped he didn’t because just as suddenly as he had pulled her in he was snapping back, his eyes wild and mouth open to cry: “Lydia!” And Malia had turned to see Lydia’s prone body being carried out of the wreckage of their battle, blood running down her neck, covering the front of her shirt like some kind of obscene decoration. 

Malia had fallen when Stiles had let go of her, falling back into the soot covered ground, too weak still to even begin to knit her broken body together. Spots had swam before her eyes as she watched Stiles run his shaking hands over Lydia’s white face, how he had followed them out of the house that had become their battleground. Braeden and Kira had helped her up later, helped wash off some of the grime from her weak body. Kira had refused to let go of her hand. 

Now, at the hospital she watches through the glass, listens to Stiles’ harsh breathing as the quiet beeps of the machine monitor Lydia’s heartbeat. There’s still blood dripping steadily down Malia’s half healed side, her arm still held gingerly in her other hand. She turns away now, closes her eyes. She could still see the stark white of the hospital room behind her eyelids, of the hands clasped together on the bed. If she concentrated, just a little, the front of her shirt still smelled faintly like Twizzlers. It didn’t matter, Malia knew, she would heal.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a sequel to "Go on, tell me I never mattered"?  
> And this was inspired by the trailer for next week's finale!   
> Title from "Day old Hate," by City and Color. Thanks for reading!!


End file.
